Apparatuses, methods, systems, and computer program products consistent with exemplary embodiments relate to cloud computing, and more particularly, to enabling secure inter-cloud data transfer using metadata orchestrators.
Recently, cloud computing technology has been developed as a useful way for individuals and businesses to store and transfer data across networks, such as the Internet. In the cloud environments, protection and security of data is of prime importance for data owners. Data owners often wish to transfer their data to other cloud systems in order to use the services provided by the other cloud systems. However, when data owned by a data owner is transferred to a cloud domain which is not under the control of the data owner, the data owner loses at least some control over the transferred data.
A significant development impacting the cloud computing environment relates to regulations and guidelines governing the classification of data for security purposes. For example, certain U.S. laws implement a system for expressing the security category, SC, of an information system. Additionally, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has also provided certain guidelines which map various information types to security categories and which indicate appropriate security controls for the information types. However, since data owners typically lose at least some control of data when the data is transferred to other cloud systems, complying with these regulations and guidelines poses a challenge.
Accordingly, there is a need in the art for secure ways of transferring data between cloud systems. Additionally, there is a need in the art for data owners transferring data in the cloud computing environment to comply with regulations and guidelines.